Haunted House
by FeistyDreams
Summary: Mikoshiba invites Nozaki and Sakura to see him at work at a haunted house, but Sakura doesn't do well in scary situations.


Prompt by Tumblr user pervertedequality

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><p>"Hey, hey, this is where I'm working, you should check it out!"<p>

Mikoshiba handed over a flyer to Nozaki, grinning widely and looking much like a proud and excited puppy. It was the Halloween season, and one of the local businesses decided to get into the spirit and run a haunted house, it seemed.

"Hm. It could be interesting. Sakura?"

"Ah, yeah, Nozaki-kun?"

"Would you like to come with me and check it out? I think I could use this in my manga, so I'd like to see."

She hesitated a moment, torn between wanting to go with him anywhere, and her fear and nervousness of such a place. "S-Sure, Nozaki-kun! I'll go!"

The smile he gave her made it worth it, or at least for that moment it did, and he nodded. "Thank you."

The following evening they met up in front of the building, ominous music playing for all to hear, coupled with the occasional scream track or real screams echoing from inside the building. Sakura shivered as she stared at the building, but she forced herself to be brave, looking up at Nozaki's stoic expression and trying to take strength from it. When he realized she had been looking up at him for near a full minute, he turned down to her and nodded, "Ready, Sakura?"

"Y-Yeah! Yeah! I can do this!"

He was a bit surprised by the way she started hyping herself up, shrugging. It was surprising to him that she was so excited about this, and he wondered if she often came to such places. He would have to ask her, after they got out. If she did frequent them, then she could provide him with some valuable information.

He wilted when he saw a sign outside that said there was no taking pictures inside, and sharpened his focus so that he wouldn't miss anything. If he wouldn't be able to take photos for reference, then he would need to pay close attention.

They paid their admission and walked inside, the building dark and made foggy, the clear smell of dry ice in the air. The lights shifted between red and blue, white lights on the floor and bright red 'EXIT' signs sometimes the only light they had to see by. They turned the corner into what appeared to be an abandoned hospital ward. Along the sides were turned over gurneys, an operating table covered in fake blood, and a pulsing heart on the nearby rusted equipment table seemed to be the source of the steady thumping sound echoing in the room.

He examined the display closely, unaware of Sakura shivering and edging closer to him. Suddenly she screamed and turned towards him, nearly bowling him over as her arms wrapped around his waist, her face rubbing against his chest as she tried not to cry. "S-Sakura!? What is it!?" He didn't have to wait for her answer, as he saw one of the workers dressed as a nurse nearby, her face appeared half-melted, her arms and legs burned, though her uniform was eerily untouched, as if put on after whatever trauma affected her appearance.

She moaned like a dying creature, making Sakura whimper and tighten her hold on him. He simply leaned forward, examining the woman's makeup and nodding to himself, murmuring things about it until the woman turned to get back into place to scare the next group. Further down in the same exhibit was another operating table, only this one had restraints on it, and an odd form writhed on it, difficult to determine its exact shape in the unsteady lighting. In its area, the lights flickered and dimmed, the stock sound of an electrical shortage buzzing in that corner.

"Let's keep going, Sakura."

"R-Right..." Even though she said that, it took her several long seconds and deep breaths before she could let him go and keep walking.

He strode ahead confidently and she stayed close like a shadow as they left the hospital ward and entered an apothecary room. The sound of thick liquid bubbling was prevalent in this room, the light a dim green now instead of the harsh red of the hospital. He paused at an antique shelf lined with glass vials and jars of varying sizes of shapes, all of them filled with different colored liquids, some which glowed, others moved, and all of the glass was worn and stained. A particularly dangerous looking vial filled with a neon green, roiling gel had a crack in the top.

A deep chuckle filled the room, and Sakura pressed against Nozaki's back, looking around nervously as he remained ever oblivious in his studies of the decorations. He moved on without knowing she stumbled and nearly fell when she lost his support, and he looked over a chemistry set with multiple tubes and liquids shifting, a corkboard in the back with papers full of random equations and elements tacked to it.

The chuckle echoed again, and Sakura felt the air shift behind her, the fog rolling against the nape of her neck. Turning around, a man stood there, his face covered in soot, hair wiry and sticking straight up. He had a wide, toothy grin, and a lab coat, and though his mouth didn't move, the room echoed with the words "_You'd make a lovely specimen, young lady..._"

Screaming and crying, Sakura bolted around Nozaki and put him between her and the mad scientist. Her shivering and fear made him nervous and he looked around, seeing no one. "Sakura? What is it?"

Without looking, she pointed behind him, and he frowned at the empty hall. "Nothing is there."

She trembled and peeked around him, her fingers gripping his shirt tightly twitched against the fabric, "Th-There was a man..."

He grunted quietly, settling his hand on her shoulder and turning them forward. "Come on. Let's see the next area."

She wanted to refuse, she wanted to bolt into one of the exit paths and leave the place. He had already moved on, though, and she dutifully followed after him, quickly falling into pace behind him, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest as she looked around nervously. The next room was a graveyard, the white lights on the floor that illuminated the path were the only lights save for a dim yellow light over what looked like the front of a mausoleum. There were graves with varied messages, most of them ominous and promising a painful death to anyone that messed with them. The sound of metal biting into dirt was clear in that room, and off in a dark corner was a hunched over figure seeming to be shoveling out one of the graves, making her whimper and cling to Nozaki's shirt once more.

He didn't seem too interested in the decorations of this room, but he stopped when movement caught his eye. One of the graves had a hand sticking out of it, the bones of the tips of the fingers showing, the grey skin peeled and melted back. He leaned over it and grunted curiously, ignoring the sound effect of a group of screeching bats and Sakura's flinch behind him.

She whimpered and pressed her face against his back, not wanting to see what was going on. Shivering almost violently, her heart raced and tears stung her eyes, and she wondered why she had ever gone into that place instead of refusing. Lost in her thoughts and her attempts to block everything out, she didn't notice someone approaching them from the nearby dark hiding area. A hand reached out and touched her shoulder and she screamed loudly, pushing against Nozaki and knocking them both over so that they sprawled on the ground.

Laughter filled the room but she didn't notice at first as she clung to Nozaki and sobbed. After a moment, when she finally calmed enough to look, she saw a young man dressed as Dracula standing there, pointing and laughing at her. When she looked up at him, she pushed her fears aside and stood up angrily, "Mikorin! How could you!?"

"Y-You're so scared! I couldn't help myself! I had to!"

"You're such a jerk! You're so mean!"

"Eh? A-Ah! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please don't cry! I'll make it up to you! I'm sorry!"

It was too late, tears were streaming down her face, and she turned around without saying another word. He looked helplessly to Nozaki and received only a shrug. Nozaki looked down at Sakura and settled a hand on her shoulder, "Let's keep going?"

"M-Mm. Yeah..."

"There's just one more room after this one!" Mikoshiba called out to them as they left, and Nozaki nodded his understanding as Sakura wiped her forearm across her eyes while walking in step beside Nozaki.

The next room looked like an orderly classroom at night. The desks were all lined up but empty, and the chalkboard at the front had no one standing in front of it, but a stick of chalk floated in front of it, as though weilded by a teacher giving a lecture. Papers on the teacher's desk flipped without being touched.

The fear made it easy to get over her anger at Mikoshiba, and Sakura was soon clinging to Nozaki's shirt again, and this time he noticed. Her hand trembled and she looked around, waiting to find something especially scary. So far this was the tamest room, and she didn't trust that it would stay that way. How could it, after everything else?

Pained moans suddenly filled the room and she squeaked, pressing against Nozaki's side. He had been busy watching a pencil roll back and forth on one of the student desks, trying to figure out how they had worked out the gimmick, and her clinging to him once again set him on edge. Looking around to find the source of her current panic, he frowned when he didn't see anything, and then he noticed the moaning in the room.

Suddenly a strobe light on the other side of the room switched on, and there was a writhing mound of figures, seeming to be the source of the moaning. The lights flicked off again for several long seconds. When they flickered on again, a man in a cheap business suit stood there, his face and the rest of his body were covered in a full body nylon suit so that none of his features could be made out clearly. He lifted a blood covered machete and swung it down just as the lights switched off again. A dull thud and a pair of screams filled the room, one from the speakers, one from Sakura with her face pressed against Nozaki's side, forcing him to lift his arm and settle it over her shoulders.

He led her from the room, and into the dark corridor that would get them out of the attraction. The moans from the classroom filled the hall, they heard that dull thud and the screaming once again. Sakura whimpered and looked up at the sound, and immediately regretted it. That may have been the last room, but lining the hall were glass panes, and behind each one was a desk with a student sitting at it. Puppet strings were attached to these students, their expressions lifeless. They each had various injuries inflicted on them, and where the strings attached to them were hooks that appeared to have been screwed slowly and painfully into their bodies, bruising and dried blood caking around each one.

One such enclosure had a student rolling a pencil back and forth, and Nozaki stopped to examine it, realizing what the display was. Each desk was set up to exactly replicate the set up of a desk in that dark classroom, each puppet student the physical body of the ghost student in the class. He shook his head slightly at the detail, unable to examine any further as he felt Sakura trembling and whimpering beside him. His arm looped over her to keep her tucked safely against him, he walked the rest of the way out of the attraction, pausing at the end when he realized they were selling pictures from the different rooms, snapped with each group that went through so people could commemorate the event.

Sakura, oblivious, continued to cower at his side as he purchased the pictures of each room so that he would have the reference. He didn't even look at them in the photos, only caring about the display of the background in them. Happy with his purchase, he turned and they left the building altogether.

Stepping out onto the sidewalk, he looked down at her, frowning as she was still trembling and stuck to his side like a bur, unwilling to look up and around. "We're outside now, Sakura."

"A-Ah. R-Right."

"You really didn't like it, did you?"

"I-I don't like scary things..."

"Then why did you agree to come along?"

"Because... Nozaki-kun asked... and I wanted to spend time with you..."

He blinked at that, shaking his head slightly though he wore a small smile. His arm still around her shoulders, he held her closer as they turned down the street toward the train station. She blushed at that, staying close to his side since he let her, and she glanced up at him shyly. "You don't have to push yourself, you know. If I had known you hate these kinds of places, I wouldn't have put you on the spot like that."

"I-It's okay. Uhm, what's that?"

Confused for a moment, he realized she was talking about the bag with the photos in it. They took a seat on one of the benches in the station, and he handed them over for her to look at. She grimaced at the photos, shivering at the recent memories. When she got to the one in the graveyard, she felt her earlier anger at Mikoshiba come back, the photo only making it worse. She and Nozaki were sprawled on the ground, and she hadn't even realized it at the time, but she had lifted his sweater and hid under it, so all that could be seen of her in the image was from a little below her shoulders and down, her head hidden under Nozaki's sweater as he looked panicked at what had just happened. Mikoshiba stood off to the side, pointing and laughing, thoroughly enjoying her misery, at least in the moment.

Shaking her head, she handed back the photos with a frustrated sigh. At least he had seemed genuinely sorry afterwards, not realizing just how badly scared she truly was. Looking at the images, she supposed she could find the humor in it, as her expressions and reactions really were ridiculous.

But that didn't mean she wouldn't milk his guilt for all she could get out of him.


End file.
